


Someday

by maurascalla



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-17
Updated: 2011-07-17
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maurascalla/pseuds/maurascalla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After yet another break up with a girl he was sure was The One, Hank's friends take him out for a drink or three. An XMFC/How I Met Your Mother fusion AU. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someday

Hank's sitting around the apartment he shares with his old college roommate, Charles and his scary boyfriend, Erik, eating Cheez-its from the box. He hasn't moved from his spot on the sofa for days, much to Charles's concern and Erik's dismay. A Cheez-it falls from his fingers on it's journey from the box to his mouth. It lands on his chest and Hank stares down at it for a moment before shrugging and leaving it there. He likes to think he's pulling off an air of nonchalance, but he knows, deep in his bones, that he looks just as pitiful as he feels.

The apartment is, thankfully, empty. Erik had declared earlier that evening that they where going down to the bar and that when they returned he expected Hank to be less of an eye-sore. Charles had smiled at him apologetically before following Erik out the door. Charles has always been so much nicer to him after his break-ups than Erik, who really couldn't care less.

He would be feel bad about 'harshing Erik's mellow,' as Sean the Waiter would say, but all Hank can think about is Angel's pretty face and how it looked when she told him it was over. He sighs, long sufferingly, and the Cheez-it falls from his chest to the floor. Hank spares it a glance, but doesn't move to pick it up off the floor. As far as he's concerned, it can fend for itself.

"You are pathetic," says a voice from behind him. He hadn't heard Alex come in, and wonders, for a moment, how long he's been there. Hank sighs again, louder than before.

Alex moves to stand in front of Hank, his arms crossed over his chest. "Get up, Bozo." He says, "we're going to get drunk."

Hank blinks up at his friend, regretting the day they met.

"Come on!" Alex makes a wild gesture with his hands. "Raven's holding the cab. Let's go!" Hank stares at him through dirty glasses, his face blank and impassive. Alex sighs, exasperated. He grabs Hank's arms and pulls him bodily to his feet. Hank only allows himself to be manhandled in such a fashion because it is more than useless to fight against someone with the seemingly endless amount of energy that Alex possesses.

Clucking his tongue, Alex spins Hank around and marches him towards his room. "You were wearing this shirt the last time I saw you." He says.

"So?"

"That was four days ago!" Alex cries, pushing Hank through the doorway into his room. "Have you been going to work like this?"

Hank shrugs. "Possibly."

Alex throws a pair of, presumably, clean jeans at Hank's face. A shirt follows soon after. "Put those on."

Hank wishes, very much, that he had the balls to say 'no.' Maybe while punching him in the face. Hank throws off his old shirt and shoves on the new on as he thinks of the Hell he'd catch from Charles if got Alex's blood all over the carpet.

**

Raven is waiting for them on the sidewalk.

"Erik says that if you don't get your shit sorted out he's going to change the locks while you're at work." She says in lue of hello. Hank scowls at her. She grins cheekily.

"No, he didn't." Darwin says from within the cab, ducking his head to see out of the open door. "Well, sort of. He told us to tell you to get over your self or he'd be forced to do something 'drastic.'"

Hank sighs, sliding in next to Darwin. Alex and Raven aren't far behind, and soon they're all crushed together in the back seat. Raven gives the driver the address to their second favorite bar, the one that isn't in the same building they live in because that's where Erik is, and Hank has no interest be glared at all night, thank you very much.

"Like Erik wouldn't be absolutely devastated if he and Charles broke up." Hank scoffs.

"To be fair," Darwin says, always the voice of reason. "They are soul mate."

"And you only dated Angel for like, four days." Raven says casually. Hank glares at her.

"It was almost four months, thank you." He corrects her. "I thought she was The One."

She gives him a pitying smile. "You always do."

An awkward silence settles over the cab. Hank, and everyone else really, is horrified that Raven would bring up such a painful topic at a time like this. "Thanks, Raven." Alex says. "Like he wasn't pathetic enough, really." Hank nods a thanks at his friend, mentally taking back his earlier wish to break his nose. Alex grins at him brightly, showing off his pearly whites.

When they get to the bar, Hank tries to hang back, away from his friends. What he'd really like to do is run away while they aren't looking. But Alex knows his tricks and forces him into the bar first.

**

Raven was Hank's first real girlfriend. They dated when he started school with her brother, Charles. She was sixteen and he was eighteen and everything was new and exciting in a way Hank'd never felt before. They'd been dating for two years when Hank started making noise about proposing. Long, painful story made short, they broke up.

They're friends now, but it wasn't an easy transition. It took years to get to this point. And sometimes, Raven says something that'll bring their uneasy truce crumbling down around Hank like the cracker crumbs falling from his mouth earlier that evening.

Hank wants what Charles and Erik have. Their love is just so visible, so true and honest and there. Hank wants that with someone. He thought, for years, that Raven was that for him. Part of him, buried deeply within his brain, still thinks that she might be the only one. Usually he ignores that part while dating any woman who'll have him, pretending that he can only see Raven as Charles's annoying little sister who forces him to actually talk to people and socialize.

It isn't the most emotionally healthy situation, but it works for them.

Hank tells himself he wouldn't have it any other way.

**

Hank isn't sure when, but at some point Charles and Erik join them. They're sitting close together at the table the group's overtaken as their own, hip-to-hip. Erik's laughing at something Charles is saying.

Eyes darting around the table, Hank takes in the sight of his friends. There's Erik and Charles, of course, happily wrapped up in their own little word, and Raven resting her head on her brother's shoulder. Alex is on his fifth drink, leaning in such an obviously unneeded way on Darwin. Hank has to force himself not to laugh when Alex 'accidentally' spills some of his drink onto Darwin's pants and tries to clean it up with his bare hands.

Hank closes his eyes, content. His mind wanders back to the last time they'd all gone out. He'd brought Angel with him. It wasn't nearly this relaxed. He never expected her to get along with Erik, most people don‘t, but she hadn't gotten along with anyone. If she was The One she would've been able to slip into their camaraderie effortlessly. And after that joke she cracked about getting a thrift shoe owner to "Jew down" the price on a shirt she really wanted, it was quite evident that she never would. He mentions this to his friends, sitting up straighter in his chair.

Raven snorts. "No shit, Sherlock."

"You're better off without her." Sean the Waiter says, bringing them their next round. He swings a chair around form a neighboring table and plops down between Darwin and Erik, careful not to touch the bigger man. "Wait, who are we talking about again?" Hank shakes his head fondly at Sean who is stealing sips from Darwin's drink.

"Angel," Raven snarls. "That skank."

"She really wasn't-"

"She was unsavory." Erik interrupts Hank.

Hank holds up the universal sign of surrender. "Okay, yeah. She was pretty terrible sometimes."

"I think," Charles hiccups. "That that is as crude a comment as you're going to get from Hank."

They all hum.

Hank wonders why he keeps trying to throw all these girls into this family he's helped to create. These people who he cares for more than his own blood. Mostly, it's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It's useless, and everyone suffers.

Raven laughs beside him, derailing is thoughts. He looks over and catches her eye. She smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkling.

He smiles back, taking a moment to speculate on his level of intoxication. Is he too drunk to think about Raven's possibly shifting feelings, or is he just drunk enough?

About the time Alex pulls out his 'magic tricks,’ which are less actual illusions than Alex accidentally setting things on fire, he thinks he’s just this side of too drunk. He laughs while Sean and Charles hustle to put the flames out.

**

Erik, Hank decides, is, in addition to being terrifying, fucking Superman. A drunk, Polish Superman.

"How are you doing this?" Charles asks, voicing what Hank is thinking. Erik has somehow managed to drag their drunk selves from the bar, across town, up the stairs, and to the door of their apartment. Hank drools on his shouldering appreciatively.

Grunting, Erik ignores Charles’s question. He knocks Hank into the wall next to the door, maneuvering him with one hand into a semi-standing position. Hank slumps, more or less on his own, against the wall and waits for Erik to open the door with his key.

“Sup’rman,” Hank mumbles as the door flies open. He whines, trying to pivot his body through the door.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Erik growls, grabbing him by his shirt collar and throwing him bodily into the apartment. Hank falters for a moment before crashing into the carpet. He lays there for a moment before he realizes his face hurts. He can’t remember why, but the carpet feels good under his fingers.

The last thing Hank sees before he closes his eyes is a lone Cheez-it sitting quietly on the floor by his nose. He listens to the goings on in the apartment, Erik’s heavy voice and Charles’s airier tones as they drift around the room, lulling him to sleep.

**

When Hank wakes up the next morning the first thing he feels is pain, followed by an intense shame rounded off by yet more pain. He groans pitifully. It’s a full minute before he works up the gumption to flip over onto his back. Unfortunately, he doesn’t quite make it.

Hank hears laughter coming from above him. It’s too deep to be Charles, leaving only Erik. Erik, who Hank currently hates for leaving him on the floor.

“I despise you,” Hank spits out, instantly regretting it. His mouth tastes like old milk and rotten cucumber. It’s disgusting. Hank promptly shuts his mouth and resumes breathing out of his nostrils.

“Don’t be silly, Hank! Erik carried us all the way home last night. We ought to be grateful.” Says Charles, somewhere to Hank’s right. He’s close, sitting on the couch, Hank thinks. He opens his eyes to confirm. The first thing he sees is his friend’s legs. Hank moans wretchedly. Erik kicks him until he’s rolled over onto his back.

“Man up, McCoy.” He says, looming over Hank. It takes everything in him, but Hank manages to pull himself into a sitting position, his back pressed against the arm of the couch.

Erik slides past the spot where Hank had been laying, showing absolutely no signs that he’d spent the entire night before drinking like it was his job. Hank loathes him all the more.

“Hank, my friend, I am not your maid.” Charles says, snapping Hank from his thoughts. He looks down to find the fallen Cheez-it in Charles’s hand. He watches Charles throw it in the waste paper basket beside the couch, looking at him as if he expects Hank to care about anything that isn’t coffee and petty emotions right now.

Over the course of the next hour Hank finds himself waking up and feeling a little more human. He passes the time by looking up and watching his friends and their easy relationship, a little in awe and a little jealous. He smiles.

Someday, he thinks.

When Raven stops by with coffee and donuts a short while later he thinks wistfully, maybe sooner rather than later.


End file.
